Saturday, September 15, 2007

Not long ago I blogged that MICT lifted its ban on YouTube. Well, it turns out that not only did they stop blocking YouTube, they also unblock other websites that previously have been blocked as well.

Other than YouTube, Thailand have been banning various websites for quite a while. Aside from obvious target such as pornography sites, other websites such as Bittorrent tracker, proxy server and various anonymity software websites have also been on the banning list. This, however, is no longer the case, as all of the banned sites can now be accessed directly without any use of proxy or tunneling.

While this may seems like a good news and a cause for celebration, this is not the first time that 'the powers that be' lifts its ban on the internet. The last time that G-man lifted the ban was way back in late 2006 (I don't remember the exact date). The lift was only temporary, however, as the authorities quickly, and quietly, going on a banning spree not long afterward, banning the same websites that it had blocked before and adding more sites to the list (even imageshack got banned, for some reason). And don't forget that, before YouTube got banned for almost 4 months, YouTube was inaccessible due to 'technical glitches' for a couple of days, despite the fact that during that time it was perfectly accessible using proxy network. (Coincident? You decided).

So, who knows what will happen this time? Maybe they'll stop blocking these websites (and more) for real. Maybe they are just waiting for... something, before resuming their self-righteous crusade again.

The OOXML vs. The World saga continues. What amazed me is that Thailand also got a fair share of Microsoft FUDcampaign despite the fact that most people here don't have any idea (or even care) what OOXML is.

Personally, I don't have any problems with this and in fact are even encourage by the news. My experience with KDE in Kubuntu was greatly marred by numerous crashes and various little bugs so it is great to hear that they are taking their time to polish 4.0.